I'm loving Kerbal. It's still in alpha, but there's already so much stuff you can do. I just got my first Kerbal in orbit yesterday. I first experimented with putting satellites in orbit. My first one was a success, but the orbit was a bit wonky. I used up all of the fuel on the rocket, so it's now junk floating around in orbit. I wanted to get the satellite up and bring the rocket back, so I made changes and tried again. My second attempt once again I got the satellite in orbit, and this time it was a better, circular orbit. Again failed to bring the rocket back though. I had plenty of fuel, but I didn't know that it needed electrical power. The third one I attached a battery to the rocket stage, put the satellite in orbit, detached the rocket, and still couldn't fire the thrusters to de-orbit it. I then realized it needs a command module too. Not only do I have a 3rd junk rocket in orbit, I forgot to extend the solar panels on the satellite before its internal battery ran out, so that makes four pieces of space junk now. I made another little tweak and the fourth try I successfully put the satellite in orbit and recovered the rocket.

Then I replaced the satellite with a manned module, but didn't put a Kerbal in it yet. I attached a small unmanned command module to it to make sure I could get it in orbit and bring it back safely before putting a Kerbal's life on the line. It was a good thing too because I had a couple of failures before getting a successful orbit and recovery. I then double checked with two more successful launches before doing it with a Kerbal on board without the unmanned module controlling it.

Now that I've done that, I'm going to experiment with putting a satellite in orbit of the Mun (Kerbin's moon), then send a Kerbal to orbit the Mun and return. Then I'll start working on a way to land them on the Mun and get them home. I'm also thinking of designing a ship to go up and get those junk rockets out of orbit. I know you can "delete" them from the command center, but that's no fun.

jimnms wrote on Jul 27, 2013, 15:47:Other than that, the hardest thing I'm having trouble picking out is a case.

I'd recommend the SilverStone Raven RV03. When I rebuilt my PC last summer, I looked at dozens of different cases assessing them for the following criteria: had to have a window, had to have excellent cooling, had to have plenty of space, and had to have easily removable dust covers that could be cleaned. The RV03 has all of that. The only thing that bothered me was the gold stripe, but shortly after release they also released a gray stripe one, which is the one I got.

I like simple cases. I went with the windowed, lighted, blinged out cases on the past two systems, and with this one and I went simple with this case (except mine is windowless). There are two things I really like about this case, one it's all aluminum, so it's very light and it keeps things cool. Second, the power supply is inserted from the outside, which made putting it together easier, and the few times I had to attach a wire to it (it's modular) I could slide it out a little to get to it better.

I want to keep it simple again again. My requirements are: at least two external bays (one 5.25" and one 3.5" or two 5.25"), USB 3.0 on the front panel and nothing on top. I found several cases I liked, but the USB ports and/or power/reset buttons were on top. My last case had the USB ports on top, and I never used them because I always end up setting stuff on top of the case. There was one that had an eSATA dock on top, which was pretty cool though.

I've browsed some more and this is the leader so far, the Cooler Master N400. Unless someone can point me to something that meets my requirements above that I like better, I'll go with this one.

Now that I've got the case sorted out, I just need to decide if I'm going to go with the 4670K to have the room to overclock later, save a few bucks for the Non K CPU or splurge for the i7 4770. The i7 4770 is has 8MB cache vs 6MB, and has hyperthreading, but it's also $90 more than the i5 4670.

Over the past couple of days I've been casually piecing together a new system. All I need is a MB, CPU and RAM. I'll keep my current PSU, HD, optical drives and video card (which I bought about 6 months ago when my old one died). I still want to get a new case and keep my old system working since I have a spare PSU, HD, OD and video card to put in it.

Right now I'm still rocking a 1st gen Core i5 750. I went with that chip for the overclockability of it. I figured I'd just overclock it later instead of an upgrade, which is what I did on my last system (which was an AMD). I did some overclocking tests with it for the first few days before I put it back to the stock 2.66GHz to install Windows and set everything up. I figured I'd leave it stock for a while and see how it handled things before I'd overclock it. It ran everything I had maxed out, so I left it at the stock speed. Since I built it I've added more RAM, upgraded the video card and HD space, but it still runs everything I have maxed out.

In a few months it will have been 4 years since I built it. I can keep going with this one and still overclock it when I get something it can't run, but I'm kind of leaning toward building a new system. I've already got a few MB's picked out, but since I didn't need to overclock this system, I'm thinking of saving a few bucks and going with the i5 4670 (non K), or spend a bit more on the i7 4770 (non K) for the extra cache and hyperthreading support. Other than that, the hardest thing I'm having trouble picking out is a case.

Cutter wrote on Jul 22, 2013, 20:12:Good now they can stfu about the stupid royal baby and the stupid royal family.

Yeah! Those idiots, being happy for other people.

So you're happy for parasites who think they're better than you and expect you bow and scrape to them for no real reason at all? Well, bully for you. This world is full of masochists, one more certainly won't make a difference. Personally I find the very concept of an aristocracy to be deeply offensive.

SpectralMeat wrote on Jul 19, 2013, 08:54:EU Truck Sim2 is awesome!For 75% off it is a steal. There is a demo if you are unsure, and your character you create and start to work on in the demo carries over to the full game. I was laughing at that game too when it first came out but it is really good.

Yeah, I tried the demo awhile back, and it pretty much sold me. Just been waiting on the right price...

I tend to like the playstyle of semi GTA, where I'm driving like a mad man, while at the same time actually attempting to get to the goal.

You A holes....I can't believe I am going to buy this game....

LOL...try the demo. I found it fun. I also have the train sim from one of the previous sales, though I've not tried it yet (and I'm sure as fuck not buying all that DLC).

Who says demos cause less sales? This is the the 2nd game I've bought during the summer sale after playing the demo (Kerbal is the other one). If you make a good game, and the demo gives you just enough of a taste leaving you wanting more, it's going to sell it.

I might be tempted to buy a wheel now, but first I'm going to give it a try with my flight sim yoke. I used a 360 pad to play the demo, but I think it would be more enjoyable with the Yoke.

Beamer wrote on Jul 17, 2013, 13:47:I've actually bought very little. I think I bought Blood Dragon and Sleeping Dogs.

Nothing seems overwhelmingly necessary to me.

I've bought less games so far this sale, but I've spent a more than usual because I pretty much already have everything I want that comes up for sale. The stuff I have bought are fairly recent releases like Dishonored or even new games like Toki Tori 2+ (got a discount for owning the previous one) and Kerbal Space Program (demo sold me), so they aren't has heavily discounted.

When was Blood Dragon on sale? I don't remember seeing it as a daily deal, if it was a flash sale I must have missed it.

I played the first PQ and loved it, though I don't think I ever beat it. I liked the old school Sierra point and click adventure games where you could lose the game if you missed something in the first 5 minutes of the game. Games these days don't let you lose.

MoreLuckThanSkill wrote on Jul 15, 2013, 21:28:What caused this nonsense where coop means a max of four players? I understand there was some console influence, with the Xbox(I think?) that could link 4 together, back in the day, but this is a PC/Mac only game... why is the cap 4 players here?

Full disclosure, I have no intention of contributing to this kickstarter, purely because I have a ton of other stuff backlogged already to play, but the 4 player limit jumped out at me here.

I found this interesting link that calculates how much time it will take you to play all of the Steam games you haven't played yet. Of course for older games released before Steam tracked your play time, it can't know that you've played and beaten them. Also some of the main story and completionist times seem way off.

Flatline wrote on Jul 8, 2013, 01:37:I feel like a chump for *only* putting 60 or 80 or whatever it was towards this game back during kickstarter, when now that money could go towards a ship geared specifically towards the style of gameplay I might prefer to play.

It's a bullshit sucker punch and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Not that there's anything I can do about it at this point.

You got a ship with your kickstarter. If I recall, the ship packages in the kickstarter were the same but cheaper as what they've offered on their site. Also, there is something you can do about it if you want a different ship, that was the point of the new site design. If you setup your account on the new site and link your kickstarter pledge, you can reclaim your current ship which will give you credit to change to a different ship.

Gnolt wrote on Jul 7, 2013, 13:28:I really want to add that some people are going overboard with the ship "buying" stuff -- a month after launch and we will be hearing complaints of how little all that meant once you get a ways into the game - most likely the best actual ships and upgrades cannot be insured AND cannot be docked (corvettes i believe are the largest ship that can dock) so your guild must have 24 hour coverage to protect your high value assets that you have to leave "parked" in space -- also if you have the free hanger perk well it is only on the starter planet so you will have to fly back there to avoid being charged

Are you sure there are ships that can't dock with stations? They may bee too big to fit in a hangar, but they should still be able to dock with a space station, otherwise they'd have to have teleporters or shuttle craft, none of which I've read anything about. Either way I'd imagine for large ships that can't land on planets (or dock), then you need to park them in orbit around a planet in the heavily policed sectors.

This also brings up a good question of how the persistent universe servers handle disconnected players. From what I read on the instancing, if you're orbiting a highly populated planet, then there may be several different instances of this planet, so not all players would see you. If you're in orbit of this planet when you disconnect, will the PU server remove you from the universe? Also how will it handle people disconnecting if they get attacked? I'm sure all of this has been asked and answered on their forums.

Sacrifex wrote on Jul 4, 2013, 15:44:I picked up the game a few sales back, but I was told the scene could be extremely vitriolic, so I never even went online with it. I have too many games left on the backlog to spend time getting yelled at when I'm trying to have fun.

Same reason I won't touch LoL, and the like.

Don't believe everything your told. I've had nothing but fun with the game playing online.

Ozmodan wrote on Jul 2, 2013, 15:24:Well if the dumb ass developers had half a sense of what not to put in a game like this, they would not have this problem. Despite the rating, kids in their early teens will be playing this, whether their parents know it or not. It is not an aussie problem, it is immature developers not recognizing limits.

I don't want my gaming experience changed because one country's stupid laws doesn't let adults make their own decisions. I thought Australia had finally grown up when it added the R18+ classification, but I guess not.

I saw a comment in another forum recently from Australians bitching about how games are more expensive in Aus. vs. the rest of the world. I imagine this is why. When developers have to rewrite their damn games to pass your nanny laws, you should have to pay more to cover the extra development costs.

I only had one problem in the whole game series. It was in episode 2 I think, at the hotel. I thought I knew what I needed to do, but couldn't figure out to "tell" the game to do it. After several minutes of frustration I turned on the "cheat" that shows the click zones. It turned out that what I was trying to do was the right thing, but the click zone for what I was trying to do was not centered on the object I was trying to click (i.e. it was below and to the right of the object).